The Mirror Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

Have you ever looked in the mirror one morning and felt quite comfortable with what you see, only to look again another day and see something completely different?

Same face. Same person.

But somehow, a different reflection.

Maybe you’ve had a good night’s sleep, you’re feeling confident, life feels manageable, and you’re quite happy with the person looking back at you.

Then there’s another day. You’re tired, overwhelmed, anxious or feeling a little low.

Suddenly, you notice things you hadn’t noticed before. You’re more critical. Less forgiving. Perhaps you don’t particularly like what you see.

But what’s actually changed?

Is it the reflection, or the way you’re interpreting it?

We don’t always see ourselves as we are

When we look in a mirror, we’re not simply observing what’s in front of us.

We’re also bringing our mood, emotions, experiences, memories and beliefs into that moment.

How we’re feeling can influence what we pay attention to and the meaning we give it.

There’s an interesting psychological phenomenon known as mood-congruent memory. Research suggests that our emotional state can influence which memories come to mind more readily.

For example, when we’re feeling low, we may find it easier to recall experiences that reinforce those feelings. When we’re feeling more positive, different memories may come to the surface.

It’s not that our memories or feelings are necessarily wrong. But our mood can influence which parts of our experience feel most significant at that moment.

And this doesn’t just apply to our physical appearance.

Think about how you see yourself after something has gone well.

Maybe you feel capable, confident, proud of what you’ve achieved.

Now think about how you see yourself when you’ve made a mistake, received criticism or had a particularly difficult day.

You might question your abilities, your decisions, perhaps even who you are as a person.

Yet one experience doesn’t suddenly define everything about you.

So why can it sometimes feel as though it does?

The reflections we receive from others

Of course, we don’t develop our sense of self in isolation.

From childhood onwards, we receive messages about who we are.

Some are spoken directly.

“You’re so sensitive.”

“You’re the sensible one.”

“You’re not very good at that.”

Others are communicated through reactions, expectations, comparisons or the way people treat us.

And not all those messages are negative.

Being told we’re capable, caring, responsible or independent can feel reassuring. But even positive descriptions can become expectations we feel we have to live up to.

There’s a concept in psychology called reflected appraisal, sometimes described as the looking-glass self.

It’s the idea that our understanding of ourselves can be influenced by how we believe other people see us.

Interestingly, it’s not always what others actually think that shapes us, but what we believe they think.

And those two things aren’t necessarily the same.

Over time, some of these messages become so familiar that we stop recognising them as someone else’s interpretation.

They simply become part of how we describe ourselves.

I’m the difficult one.

I’m the one who always copes.

I’m not creative.

I’m just not confident.

But where did those beliefs come from?

And probably more importantly, do they still reflect who we are today?

When someone else’s voice becomes our own

Something I find particularly interesting is how external messages can gradually become part of our internal conversation.

We might no longer have someone telling us we’re not good enough, but we continue telling ourselves.

We might have spent years being praised for putting others first, and now feel uncomfortable when we prioritise our own needs.

Or we’ve been described in a particular way for so long that we struggle to imagine ourselves being anything different.

The original message may have come from someone else.

But the voice repeating it now feels like our own.

I recognise some of this in my own journey of getting to know myself.

I’ve found it surprisingly challenging at times to separate what I genuinely think, want or enjoy from what I’ve simply come to believe about myself.

When I started taking away some of the outside noise and really listening to myself, I began to realise just how much I’d been living on autopilot.

Going through the motions. Assuming I liked certain things because I always had. Believing there were things I couldn’t do, without necessarily questioning why.

A little example of this happened recently in my yoga class.

There’s a standing yoga position called Eagle Pose. I’ve tried it before, but never really managed it, usually ending up doing my own makeshift version.

My current yoga teacher has a way of explaining things that really makes sense to me. Rather than asking us to go straight into the standing pose, he got us to sit down and practise wrapping one leg around the other.

His thinking was simple. If we could do it sitting down, we could do it standing up.

And I could.

I managed Eagle Pose standing up, and even my yoga teacher commented on it!

What struck me afterwards was that my body hadn’t suddenly changed. It was the same pose I’d tried before.

But the way it had been explained to me was different. I could understand it, experience what was possible while sitting down, and then take that understanding into the standing pose.

What changed wasn’t my body. It was my belief about what my body could do.

And it made me think about how often we decide we’re not capable of something, when potentially we simply haven’t found an approach that works for us yet.

It’s a small example, but one that made me curious about how much of my understanding of myself has been shaped by experiences, expectations and messages I’ve absorbed along the way.

It’s an ongoing process, rather than something I’ve suddenly figured out.

And when we’re already feeling vulnerable, tired or uncertain, those familiar messages can become even more convincing.

That’s not to say our feelings aren’t real.

They are.

But how we feel about ourselves in a particular moment isn’t necessarily the whole picture of who we are.

What happens when we begin to question the reflection?

This is something that often comes into coaching.

Not necessarily the mirror itself, but the meaning we attach to what we see in ourselves.

The descriptions we’ve accepted.

The expectations we’ve carried.

The things we’ve come to believe we’re capable of, or not capable of.

Coaching can offer space to explore those beliefs with curiosity rather than immediately accepting or dismissing them.

Where did this idea about yourself come from?

What experiences have reinforced it?

What might you be overlooking?

And who might you be if you weren’t continually viewing yourself through that particular lens?

It’s not about replacing every uncomfortable thought with a positive one.

Sometimes there are things about ourselves we want to acknowledge, take responsibility for or change.

But there’s a difference between recognising something we’d like to work on and allowing it to define our entire identity.

And there’s something important in recognising that the way we see ourselves isn’t necessarily fixed.

Psychological research into self-perception has explored how feedback and reflection can influence our understanding of ourselves.

Which raises an interesting possibility.

If our perceptions of ourselves have been shaped by experiences and messages over time, perhaps we can also begin to examine and reconsider some of them.

Not because everything we’ve believed is wrong.

But because we may have more choices about how we understand ourselves than we realise.

Maybe it’s worth looking again

The next time you catch your reflection, take a moment to notice more than what you see.

Notice how you’re feeling.

Notice the words that come to mind.

Notice whose voice those words might resemble.

And consider whether you’re seeing yourself through today’s mood, yesterday’s experience or someone else’s expectations.

Because the person looking back at you is so much more than any single reflection.

One question: “What do I see when I look at myself?” will give us a certain answer. 

But, what happens when we go a little deeper:  “What is influencing the way I see myself?”

Maybe take a moment to sit with that question.

Notice what comes up, without feeling you have to change or challenge it straight away.

And if you’d like some space to explore how you see yourself, the beliefs you’ve carried and what might be possible when you begin to question them, that’s something we can explore together through coaching.

You can book a free chemistry call through my website to see whether coaching feels right for you.

raysreflectivecoaching.com